


Did I Ever Have One?

by MoonlightIcarus



Series: Tin man, Birdman, Fisherman [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Alcohol Withdrawal, Angst, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Baggage, Homelessness, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, M/M, Panic Attacks, Past Relationship(s), Scars, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Worth Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:47:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21677734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonlightIcarus/pseuds/MoonlightIcarus
Summary: Qrow wonders if he'll ever have a home and if he even deserves one. Clover comes to calm his fears.
Relationships: Qrow Branwen/Clover Ebi, Qrow Branwen/James Ironwood
Series: Tin man, Birdman, Fisherman [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1564132
Comments: 7
Kudos: 165





	Did I Ever Have One?

Qrow doesn't have a home. Not a house or an apartment or anything at all. Ever since he graduated from Beacon and left Raven behind all he had to rely on were people like Ozpin and Taiyang to give him a room to stay in.

Now that he was thinking about it critically, honestly it was was mostly his own fault. He had been the one to say that a home would be useless since he traveled so much on missions, sometimes he would try and rationalize it by thinking booze was better than a home he wouldn't use but deep down he knew that was a lie. Even when he taught at Signal the staff were given room and board if they requested it, but that wasn't a home to him, it couldn't be, it was just something that he had borrowed for a time. .

But had he ever really had a home. His dorm at Beacon was the same sutuation as when he was a teacher, something he was given as long as he was useful. There was the time he had lived in the village with Raven, but could a small nomadic tribe even have a home by definition? Maybe he was just destined to go without one. If he really wanted to he could collect a few twigs and branches to make a nest and call that a home but thay might not work longterm.

Honestly he didn't have any longterm plan. He was sure that Tai only put up with him because Ruby and to a lesser extent Yang liked him. If the girls weren't so attached to him he would have been thrown out on his ass a long time ago. And the worst part was that he couldn't even blame Tai for doing it. By nature Qrow made everything worse, so why would you bother to keep a liability like him around.

Maybe that was why Ozpin even trusted him with the information about Salem. He knew that Qrow had nowhere else to go, Qrow's displeasure in his work was obvious but he couldn't stop doing it, he had nothing to turn to if it fell apart. Ozpin could have destroyed his life in an instant if he ever suspected betrayal or wavering commitment, sometimes he acted even more authoritarian than Jimmy.

"Oh, Jimmy." Qrow hadn't noticed he was talking out loud until then. 

Jimmy was conflicted with himself at the best of times, yet he still put aside time and energy for Qrow. It was nice, but it was a waste of time and resources that could have gone to someone more deserving or to a better, more important cause.

Really at this point what did he even have to offer anyone anymore. Ruby was a better fighter than him and she didn't have to deal with his handicap of a semblance, Yang was drifting away from him, but he knew why she was doing it and he didn't blame her, Tai was just a tickling clock until he was through with it all, Raven had moved on and even changed sides, and James...James would get along without him. Any feeling that had existed between them before were lost in his grief. The hug at their reunion had given Qrow hope for the first time since the fall of Beacon, but he knew having hope would only tempt fate against him.

So here he was again, laying down in a bed that didn't belong to him, too entangled in his own irrelevant feelings to get the sleep he needed. He couldn't sleep when he was laying on his back, but he was laying on his back because he was afraid that someone or something might come out of nowhere. And laying on his back made him uncomfortable and restless feeding his paranoia necessitating he lay supine in preparation for an attack that may not even come.

Then there was a presence outside the door to the room he was in (maybe he could have said it was his room but it didn't really belong to him). There was no creak or noise to alert him to it but he could feel someone on the other side of the doorstep. The body didn't knock to signal their entry just pushed open the door and walked inside. 

It was Clover. Qrow would have expected Ruby or maybe even Yang, possibly James or Winter if they felt like yelling at him but definitely not Clover.

"For a famed huntsman you certainly didn't react when I entered your room unannounced."

"I knew you weren't a threat. If you made it this far without setting off an alarm or breaking something then I knew you weren't a foe." Really he was just feeling too shitty to care about himself but he had enough energy to not look completely pathetic just yet.

"Sure." He sounded unconvinced and leaned into the doorway in his sleep clothes. "But I came here I needed to ask you to relax. I could tell you were feeling down from the other hallway and it's bound to attract a whole mob of grim right here." 

His tone was joking and playful, but Qrow didn't perceive it like that. To him it was just more proof of how useless he was. Not only did he take up a perfectly good room and food, but he was squandered that kindness by feeling sorry for himself and attracting monsters to ruin life for everyone else. He felt worse than he had before, finally turning to lay on his side and curl in on himself. Now he didn't have to look at the annoyance and disappointment on Clover's face. In less than a week he had proven again that he was destined to make things worse for himself. 

He registered the dip in the bed next to him but he only curled further in, burrowing under the covers and into a pillow. If he was lucky then maybe Clover would overlook the way he was fully dressed while lying in bed. It would be too much effort to get undressed and he needed to be ready for an attack. Though it's not like he would be very useful, he didn't have the willpower to sit up, so fighting in this state would be a poor choice for him.

"What's got you worrying?" Clover placed his hand on Qrow's side, the covers and his clothing still separating them. The ace op had no right to sound so concerned and be so comforting to him. He had only known Qrow for a short time and here he was acting like an old friend who wanted to help out. This was going to end like all his relationships did, the other person would realize that they couldn't fix a lost cause. It stung to accept it but he had stopped pretending that maybe someone would like him and keep him around, STRQ was the closest he ever came to something like that but he knew from the beginning the team wasn't meant to last.

Qrow had almost forgot about the question but the sooner he answered the sooner he could wallow alone again. "There's too many ways that things could go wrong with the launch of the tower. If I'm nearby then I'll just ruin everything again."

"Don't worry I'll be there to make it goes smoothly." When Clover wasn't able to soothe Qrow he continued. "I know what we're doing is tough, and that this in a cosmic war we are fighting, but we have to hope that we can end it and move past it."

Qrow had never thought about it like that, the end of the struggle. Yeah, defeating Salem would stop all the grim, that he understood, but he never thought about the logistics of it and the real impact it would have. Society was build around the need to fight grim, hundreds had committed their lives to protecting people from monsters, but if the monsters stopped appearing then what would that mean for the world? What would that mean for him?

Being a huntsman was the only thing he was good at, his whole life was about surviving tragedy after tragedy, but take away the struggle and what was left? What would he even do after it all? With no grim there would be no need for a huntsman or a school like Beacon or Signal. He would be out of a job and he couldn't rely on that as a place to stay anymore. Tai would be in the same boat, but he would also need to watch after Ruby and Yang so his money would be stretched thin. There was no way Qrow could stick around as extra weight and put more straign on Tai. Fuck, that was the closest he had ever come to belonging and he was going to lose that to.

"I'm a selfish fool." They were doing something that would help save the world, but all he could think about was where he was going to sleep if he even managed to survive at all. He didn't deserve to hope to live through it, he didn't even have the right to feel bad about it, he was too useless for that. The single word "useless" crowded his thoughts and soon tears pricked at his eyes, falling down the side of his face. 

"Hey, Qrow." Clover sounded worried but he shouldn't be, not for someone like him. "I'm just going to..." he let his actions speak instead of saying it all. He rearranged himself on the bed to spoon Qrow. Clover was still on top of the covers and Qrow was under them but it was closer than they had ever been before.

His hands wrapped around Qrow's gangly form, one crossing over his stomache to hold him close and the other going over his eyes and part of his forehead, blocking his vision and forcing him to uncurl from the ball he had put himself in.

It was everything he wanted, and everything he dreaded. Qrow had the reassuring touching that he wasn't alone as he lay flushed against another body, but he was completely unable to defend himself. Clover could have pulled a knife to slit his throat and Qrow would be helpless to stop him. It would be his death and no one would care about it. He was irrelevant and redundant, there was no need for a washed up ex drunk who was currently five days sober, during a war. In life there were people that mattered and he had learned long ago that he wasn't one of them.

"Qrow...please...breath." His words were measured and passed in the same way he wanted Qrow to breath in. Clover used his hand on Qrow's diaphragm and where his chest touched his back to lead him in taking beep breath. "That's it, slowly...calm...slowly." The mantra was repeated again and again until Qrow was breathing evenly on his own and the tear tracks had stopped forming.

Clover had seen panic attacks and helped others through them before. He knew that the worst may have passed but there was still some to come. 

"I'm sorry." It was a pathetic whisper and it was followed by Qrow making a brief struggle to get out of his grip. The attempt was halfhearted in nature but the shame flooding his senses drove him to attempt it. 

"You don't need to apologize." Too much talking on his part could easily come off as condescending and reduce them to where they had started.

"I should though. I shouldn't worry about myself right now, there are important things that need to be done." Qrow didn't understand how Clover was missing that. He had already had his pity party that wasted his time so laying there only added insult to injury.

"You can feel bad. You can feel like absolute shit. You can feel happy, or glad, or just annoyed, but you need to let yourself feel something." His rubbed his hand over Qrow's stomache to comfort him further, and relax his body in addition to his mind. "It's not wrong to feel like things are falling apart, but if you keep it to yourself then the feelings never stop.

"Huff, I'm getting lectured on emotions by Atlas's prime pretty boy, sounds pretty pathetic to me. That what you meant?" He ended it with a tired, rough chuckle. 

The self deprecation was worrying but the return of Qrow's regular sense of humor was a good sign. "Not really. Here try this: tell me something that makes you happy or sad or just anything at all. Just talk about something and I will be here to listen. It may sound dumb but please try it....at least once."

Some part of Qrow, some small, insignificant part was telling him to go along with the request and he listened. "Ruby...she...she makes me worry. It's all I do when I see her, just think of anything and everything that could go wrong."

"Ruby is strong and capable, she has proven that." Clover heard many stories and seen how she had performed in the Vital Festival tournament. "She has a team just as strong behind her to support her as well."

In response Qrow grumbled, "What's the point of me talking if your just going to tell me I'm wrong?"

"I'm not saying your wrong, in proving that just because you see things one way is doesn't mean they are true." Clover slipped his hand under Qrow's shirt and began rubbing the smooth skin there, getting a muffled grown from the other man. "I understand why someone may be pessimistic, especially given all the troubles you have faced to get where you are but thinking about a worst case scenario and it actually happening are two different things."

"Ok." He'd been told that before but it felt like it might actually stick this time.

"Now tell me something that makes you feel happy. You're gunna have to say more if you want to feel better." He had to push in just the right ways to reach a breakthrough, but it was a thin line between that and another breakdown.

He wanted to say alcohol but that wasn't right. It didn't make him happy it made him numb and before trying to sober up it just made him more depressed. "I-I...I don't know..." It was barely audible at the end, and had Clover not been so close he would have missed it. "I don't know what makes me happy, I haven't felt that in some time."

"Just tell me something you did then. It doesn't need to be a person or a hobby only a moment that made you feel content."

Qrow thought and thought but his mind was filled only with the current feeling of warm muscled limbs pressed against his skin. He was always cold and they made it better, that's just what Clover did honestly. He made things better. "This." It was all he could force himself to say.

"What do you mean?" The firm but not pressing touches continued until he had coaxed an explanation out of Qrow.

"This is nice. It feels good, and comforting." Qrow's hands that had been laying in front of him moved to rest on Clover's where they were rubbing on his skin. His left went onto the one going over his abdomen and his right covered the one over his eyes blocking out the few strands of light that were seeping through. "I'm...I'm happy."

"I can stay if you want me to, but I won't invite myself to your room."

"I-I'd like that...if you stayed."

"I'll be here for you."

Maybe he could have a home after all. Maybe he would find a nice job doing something normal. Raven may forgive him and he could apologize to Tai for all the grief he had given him. He could have hope for the future, and if he was lucky he might even have Clover with him for it. After a life of bad luck it had to turn around eventually.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments I'd you liked it. Or if you didn't so I can improve.


End file.
